Just a day after BeReal reached the top spot in the app store, Instagram launched a new dual camera feature so that you can simultaneously record and take photos using the front and back camera. BeReal was launched as an almost anti-Instagram app that was more about the here and now than just showing off the best bits of your life.
Head of Instagram Adam Mosseri made an announcement earlier this week about the features in the latest Instagram update which included a dual camera, reel templates and reels video merge. Instagram has been criticized recently for putting too much emphasis on video content rather than photos which is how it started. In fact, one Instagram user started the movement to make Instagram Instagram again in the hope of reverting it back to a photo-sharing platform.
• Read more: Best cameras for Instagram
To use the dual camera feature you need to make a reel and select dual camera, this will then allow you to both record what you’re seeing and yourself at the same time. The biggest difference between BeReal’s version and Instagram's is that BeReal only allows you to post once per day and every day is a different time so you could be doing anything from walking the dog to cleaning the house to partying in Ibiza. The beauty of it is no matter what you’re doing, you share it.
Instagram seems to have fallen into a pattern of copying other apps rather than trying to make its own niche (which FYI, should be photos). Since TikTok launched, Instagram has favored video content in the form of reels over photo content and creators have found engagement dropping.
The dual camera feature on BeReal provides authenticity that Instagram just doesn’t and while it might be nice to be able to record yourself and what you can see, it doesn’t feel like it’s something Instagram needed.
No doubt supporters of the Make Instagram Instagram Again movement will have even more fire in their bellies for the app to return to how it was with a chronological feel, photo-focused content and fewer suggested posts. When will Instagram learn that nobody likes what it’s turning into and these updates are not improvements?!
